3 replies to this topic

[SkiBachelor]

Hi Everyone,

While looking at the new Colorado State Travel guide today, I noticed that the gondola at Telluride has had its Garaventa grips replaced with what appears to be the Agamatic series. I was wondering if anyone has been to Telluride lately and can back this up?

The reason why I mention this is that it seems it would be very expensive to switch to a different grip, but the photo looks genuine, other than it being shot in vivid format.

Kind Regards,
Cameron Halmrast

[floridaskier]

There's no reason they would photoshop it for a tourist brochure, so it's probably real. They must have been having some serious problems with the old ones to change to a whole different type. The Telluride gondola has 4 stations right?

[ccslider]

SkiBachelor, on 26 June 2009 - 11:06 PM, said:

Hi Everyone,

While looking at the new Colorado State Travel guide today, I noticed that the gondola at Telluride has had its Garaventa grips replaced with what appears to be the Agamatic series. I was wondering if anyone has been to Telluride lately and can back this up?

The reason why I mention this is that it seems it would be very expensive to switch to a different grip, but the photo looks genuine, other than it being shot in vivid format.

Kind Regards,
Cameron Halmrast

Yes Cameron, your observation is true. The Mountain Village Gondola underwent an extensive rebuild project spanning 2006-2008 that included replacement of the cabin grips & hangers, haul ropes, terminal accel and decel conveyors & running rails, tower sheave assemblies, conveyor drives, terminal control wiring and other associated subsystems. The MV gondola racks up 5000 hours each year and over 12 years of operation has amassed 60K total hours, an equavalent of what a 'typical' ski lift would experience over 50 years.

[SkiBachelor]

floridaskier, on 27 June 2009 - 06:30 AM, said:

There's no reason they would photoshop it for a tourist brochure, so it's probably real. They must have been having some serious problems with the old ones to change to a whole different type. The Telluride gondola has 4 stations right?

While the Telluride gondola is listed as being a 3 stage gondola, it's really only two. The Village to Parking Lot Gondola is its own system and is not connected in any way to to the system that connects the Village to Town.